A new poem by Peggy Eastman:

By all rights, I should have had no love at all

for this heathen country. Its green-carpeted

hills, wind-thrashed headlands and stunted

huts never spoke to me of my homeland.

Was I not a son of Christian Britain?

Was I not seized by grizzled Irish raiders

with roughened hands and sold as a slave?

Did they not make me, their unwilling captive,

tend bleating sheep for six years? Though the

psalmist David was a shepherd, I liked it not.

For six years, all I wanted was my own country.

When I escaped and found a ship to take me home

to civilized Britain, I rejoiced. And yet...

It was a sea-pull on my heart, strong as a tide,

and it dominated my dreams. It was God’s call.

In simplicity, solitude and spiritual community

I learned to live with monks, training as a missionary.

I even set my hand to the illumination of sacred texts.

I had to convince the Church my call was real,

speaking from that sea-pull on my heart, saying

where I, an unworthy sinner, was most needed.

Eventually my superiors believed my call and

sent me back to Ireland to tend souls, not sheep.

On every path, critics dogged me, like those

lean, mean-faced snapping Irish hounds. Druids

didn’t want me there; they were my Pharisees.

But converts flocked to me to learn about Christ.

It wasn’t I they wanted; they wanted the Messiah.

What will they say of me in ages to come? I am

no scholar and no mystic, despite those tidal voices

I heard in my dreams. I am just one who, seeing a job

to do for the Lord, asked for His grace to do it.

© by Peggy Eastman, 2022